{"id":158,"date":"2013-11-04T03:01:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T10:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/?p=158"},"modified":"2013-11-26T17:26:13","modified_gmt":"2013-11-27T00:26:13","slug":"maker-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/2013\/11\/04\/maker-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Maker Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

From blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/sept2013
\nWeek 9:<\/strong> Makerspaces<\/a>
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\nDiscussion: Which type of makerspace would appeal the most to you and be the most successful in your community? Is there a successful makerspace in your area?<\/em><\/big>
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\njiorns says: October 29, 2013 at 3:13 am<\/strong>
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\nThis is a really novel market and one I had never heard of until today. Thanks for the introduction to Makerspaces. I\u2019ve explored what is happening in Australia and was curious to see that there are some geeks and artists following this trend.
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\nFor example, a \u201cRobots and Dinosaurs Hackerspace\u201d<\/a> is in Sydney, very much repurposing old electronics equipment.
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\nA fab lab tried to get off the ground in another part of the country. It was a community initiative of artists and craftspeople in a rural location that had an old, disused hospital which would have converted nicely to a makerspace.
\nThe intention was to call it \u2018egMakerspace\u2019 (short for East Gippsland Makerspace) but it couldn\u2019t raise the funding needed. Details are on the Pozible crowdfunding website<\/a>.
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\nThere are a few other aspiring individuals with electronics\/3D printing orientations trying to get like minds together via the MeetUp website.
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\nWhat I think is great about Makerspaces is the opportunity to re-use electronic componentry (there\u2019s so much of it going to \u2026. somewhere??)
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\nMarketing a Maker Space – Target Market and Location <\/em><\/big>
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\nSome aspects to consider include:
\n1.Community \u2013 people interested in makerspaces tend to be explorers, tech \u2013 savvy, and creative.
\n2.Demographics \u2013 most people interested in creating fit into a younger demographic-between 20-40 years old. Many have at least some college or university experience. The majority of people involved in makerspaces (65-85%) tend to be male.
\n3.Potential Competition \u2013 libraries, schools and non-profits are expanding services to include makerspaces.
\n4.Location \u2013 Access via public transport, especially in urban centers is key. Also important is access to hardware stores (to purchase equipment for repairs, restock etc.) and food services (many users of makerspaces often put in long hours and need access to quick pick -me-ups)
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\nWhat other factors should be considered when assessing a community location for a makerspace venture?<\/em><\/big>
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\njiorns says: October 29, 2013 at 3:36 am<\/strong>
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\nI wonder about the statement in the Demographic sub-section that \u201cmany have at least university\/college background\u201d.
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\nWhen I watched the video in the introduction to this Makerspaces topic, I saw a lot of industrial equipment like lathes, cutting tools, etc. The type of equipment used in metalworking, woodworking and other technical trades. To my mind, people with the technical skills to use that type of equipment have come from backgrounds of no formal education, VET or apprenticeship-based learning.
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\nIt would contrast with the more \u2018geeky\u2019 kind of Hackerspace whose participants might be computer technicians and IT graduates from university or college backgrounds. Just my thoughts.
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\nDiscussion: If you were opening up a makerspace in your local community and your marketing budget was limited, what cost-effective marketing strategy would you employ, and why?<\/em><\/big>
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\nJanette says: November 4, 2013 at 2:45 am<\/strong>
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\nSome other marketing tactics are:
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\n1) \u2018Refer a friend and redeem your prize\u2019
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\nThis is a stronger marketing tactic than a passive \u2018tell someone you know about us\u2019. The refer-a-friend tactic will require design and printing of vouchers that promote a prize to be redeemed by a member or their guest when the guest uses or joins the Maker Space. The prize is likely some kind of discount \u2013 e.g. reduced membership fee, reduced class fee or one free class, x% discount on hire space booked between particular dates, and so on.
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\nA digital version of the voucher can run alongside printed vouchers and be run through social media (FB, MeetUp, other sites).
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\n2) \u2018Vouchers on retail receipts\u2019
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\nContact the marketing managers of the petrol station brands or supermarket brands in the area and try to negotiate the printing of a voucher (or small advertising message) on their local store customer receipts. Petrol stations will have the largest consumer base in the local community, so using them as a marketing channel makes sense. Likewise, supermarkets have a wide reach. This tactic is one way to get a message about the Maker Space to a lot of people. Ideally, it doesn\u2019t cost much and you would negotiate the message to run for 2 to 3 months.
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\n3) \u2018PR magnet\u2019
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\nThink of a novel event to hold related to the Maker Space and do the pre and post publicity for the event.
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\nMake sure to hold the event on a weekend to attract community members (ideally a competition intending to make something intriguing using maker space tech skills). It might be only members of the Maker Space participating or it could be community members at large (depending on equipment and tools required). The essential thing is to think of an event that has a competition theme and that will involve doing something intriguing (e.g. \u201cMake the biggest 3D banana competition\u201d). Anything novel attracts a crowd.
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\nHowever, the crowd will need to know beforehand that the event is happening. So, try to get some publicity in local media (radio\/press) and also in social media. If you are holding a novel event, and it\u2019s a competition of some kind, the radio\/press organisations will probably be interested to run a short publicity message. You would need to contact the media organisations and send them a \u2018media release\u2019 (1\/2 to 1 page media statement ensuring it includes Maker Space contact details and name of event organiser) a few days leading up to the event. Make a courtesy call to each media organisation after you send the information to make sure they got it.
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\nWhile the competition is happening, take photos. Then upload those to social media with a catchy paragraph or two. Send the same photos and a summary to local media for them to run a short after-event message (they may not do it if they gave pre-event publicity but it\u2019s worth a shot). Make sure the message clearly states the location and contact details for the Maker Space.
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\nDiscussion: In your professional setting have you participated in a war room? If so, can you describe the task that the team was addressing and how the approach worked.<\/em><\/big>
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\njiorns says: October 29, 2013 at 4:18 am<\/strong>
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\nProfessionals blocking out calendars and hunkering down in a \u2018war room\u2019 for a period of time sounds great .. so long as everyone is free of competing priorities for that time. I relate to a \u2018project team\u2019 such as that demonstrated in the video and how it might work for course development in an educational institution where IT, instructional design, SMEs, content developers and perhaps marketing need to work together. However, practically, in a commercial organisation, this type of \u2018co-habitation\u2019 would only occur for sessions of an hour or few hours at a time (e.g. courseware validation sessions). There is just too much pace to business and too much multi-tasking for people to \u2018shut off in a room\u2019.
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\nI do like the term \u2018war room\u2019 though, and think it conjures up notions of rigorous debate, which is a good thing.
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\nI think there\u2019s a bit of a stretch from makerspace to war room in a corporate workplace. Project teams are the norm in corporations and even then, they don\u2019t work together and may not even sit anywhere near each other, and come together just for the occasions when there needs to be consensus on something or a strategy clarified.
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\ntsteffen says: October 30, 2013 at 5:36 pm<\/strong>
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\nThanks for joining this discussion thread. I can appreciate that proposing war rooms as an example of a makerspace will be debatable for some. However, depending on the nature of the activities taking place in the war room and the reason for bringing the team together, I believe that a good argument can be made for the war room as a type of makerspace.
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\nIf \u201ccreative making\u201d of a key deliverable is required, especially with a compressed project schedule, in my experience the need to isolate the key project team members from competing priorities is exactly why a war room is often set up.\n<\/div>\n

 
\njiorns says: November 4, 2013 at 3:28 am <\/strong>
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\nSure. For something \u2018urgent\u2019, like getting a tender proposal finished for a deadline which requires collaboration of a few people, a war room could be set up to take the relevant people \u2018off line\u2019 for a time to focus on the urgent project. To me, it\u2019s just a different type of Makerspace to others mentioned in this topic because no organization is founded in order for the space\/equipment to be used; it already exists. Interesting that these types of spaces have the word \u2018war room\u2019.
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/sept2013 Week 9: Makerspaces     Discussion: Which type of makerspace would appeal the most to you and be the most successful in your community? Is there a successful makerspace in your area?   jiorns says: October 29, 2013 at 3:13 am   This is a really novel market and one I had never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[866319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-team-oers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ventureforth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}